Missing Malaysian plane: Cops find data on Indian Ocean runways in pilot's simulator

March 19, 2014

Indian_Ocean_runwaysKuala Lumpur, Mar 19: An international land and sea search for a missing Malaysian jetliner is covering an area the size of Australia, authorities said on Tuesday, but police and intelligence agencies have yet to establish a clear motive to explain its disappearance.

Investigators are convinced that someone with deep knowledge of the Boeing 777-200ER and commercial navigation diverted Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, carrying 12 crew and 227 mainly Chinese passengers, perhaps thousands of miles off its scheduled course from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

The New York Times cited senior US officials as saying that the first turn back to the west was likely programmed into the aircraft's flight computer, rather than being executed manually, by someone knowledgeable about aircraft systems.

Malaysia Airlines chief executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya told Tuesday's daily news conference that that was "speculation."

Malaysian officials said on Monday that suicide by the pilot or co-pilot was a line of inquiry, although they stressed that it was only one of the possibilities under investigation. Police have searched their homes in middle-class suburbs of Kuala Lumpur close to the airport.

Among the items taken for examination was a flight simulator Zaharie had built in his home.

A senior police officer with direct knowledge of the investigation said the programs from the pilot's simulator included Indian Ocean runways in the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Diego Garcia and southern India, although he added that US and European runways also featured.

"Generally these flight simulators show hundreds or even thousands of runways," the officer said. "What we are trying to see is what were the runways that were frequently used."

Meanwhile, intensive background checks of everyone aboard have so far failed to find anyone with a known political or criminal motive to hijack or deliberately crash the plane, Western security sources and Chinese authorities said.

Malaysian acting transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein told a news conference the "unique, unprecedented" search covered a total area of 2.24 million nautical miles (7.68 million sq km), from central Asia to the southern Indian Ocean.

Flight MH370 vanished from civilian air traffic control screens off Malaysia's east coast less than an hour after take-off early on March 8.

Investigators piecing together patchy data from military radar and satellites believe that someone turned off the aircraft's identifying transponder and ACARS system, which transmits maintenance data, and turned west, re-crossing the Malay Peninsula and following a commercial aviation route towards India.

Malaysian officials have backtracked on the exact sequence of events. They are now unsure whether the ACARS system was shut down before or after the last radio message was heard from the cockpit — but said that did not make a material difference.

"This does not change our belief, as stated, that up until the point at which it left military primary radar coverage, the aircraft's movements were consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane," said Hishammuddin. "That remains the position of the investigating team."

Background checks clean

China's ambassador to Malaysia said his country had investigated its nationals aboard the flight and could rule out their involvement.

US and European security sources said efforts by various governments to investigate the backgrounds of everyone on the flight had not, as of Monday, turned up links to militant groups or anything else that could explain the jet's disappearance.

Malaysian police investigations have also failed to turn up any red flags on 53-year-old Zaharie Ahmad Shah, the captain, or co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27.

Accounts of their lives portray them as sociable, well-balanced and happy. Neither fits the profile of a loner or extremist with a motive for suicide or hijacking.

"I've never seen him lose his temper. It's difficult to believe any of the speculation made against him," said Peter Chong, a friend of Zaharie, describing him as highly disciplined and conscientious.

'Needle in a haystack'

Thailand said on Tuesday a re-examination of its military radar data had picked up the plane re-tracing its route across Peninsular Malaysia. The Thai military had previously said it had not detected any sign of the plane.

What happened next is less certain. The plane may have flown for another six hours or more after dropping off Malaysian military radar about 200 miles northwest of Penang Island.

But the satellite signals that provide the only clues were not intended to work as locators. The best they can do is place the plane in one of two broad arcs — one stretching from Laos up to the Caspian, the other from west of Indonesia down to the Indian Ocean off Australia — when the last signal was picked up.

China, which, with Kazakhstan, is leading the search in the northern corridor, said on Tuesday it had deployed 21 satellites to scour its territory.

Australia, which is leading the southernmost leg of the search, said it had shrunk its search field based on satellite tracking data and analysis of weather and currents, but that it still covered 600,000 sq km (230,000 sq miles).

"A needle in a haystack remains a good analogy," John Young, general manager of the emergency response division of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA), told reporters.

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News Network
June 4,2020

Jun 4: A malaria drug President Donald Trump took to try to prevent COVID-19 proved ineffective for that in the first large, high-quality study to test it in people in close contact with someone with the disease.

Results published Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine show that hydroxychloroquine was no better than placebo pills at preventing illness from the coronavirus.

The drug did not seem to cause serious harm, though -- about 40% on it had side effects, mostly mild stomach problems.

 “We were disappointed. We would have liked for this to work,” said the study leader, Dr. David Boulware, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Minnesota.

“But our objective was to answer the question and to conduct a high-quality study,” because the evidence on the drug so far has been inconclusive, he said.

Hydroxychloroquine and a similar drug, chloroquine, have been the subject of much debate since Trump started promoting them in March.

Hydroxychloroquine has long been used for malaria, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis, but no large studies have shown it or chloroquine to be safe or effective for much sicker patients with coronavirus, and some studies have suggested the drugs may do harm.

Trump took a two-week course of hydroxychloroquine, along with zinc and Vitamin D, after two staffers tested positive for COVID-19, and had no ill effects, according to results of his latest physical released by his doctor Wednesday.

Federal regulators have warned against hydroxychloroquine's use except in hospitals and formal studies because of the risk of side effects, especially heart rhythm problems.

Boulware's study involved 821 people in the United States and Canada living with someone diagnosed with COVID-19 or at high risk of getting it because of their job -- doctors, nurses, ambulance workers who had significant exposure to a sick patient while not wearing full protective gear.

They were randomly assigned to get either the nutrient folate as a placebo or hydroxychloroquine for five days, starting within four days of their exposure. Neither they nor others involved in the research knew who was getting which pills.

After 14 days in the study, 12 per cent on the drug developed COVID-19 symptoms versus 14 per cent in the placebo group, but the difference is so small it could have occurred by chance, Boulware said.

“There's basically no effect. It does not prevent infection,” he said of the drug. Even if it were to give some slim advantage, “we'd want a much larger effect” to justify its use and risk of side effects for preventing illness, he said.

Results were no different among a subgroup of participants who were taking zinc or vitamin C, which some people believe might help make hydroxychloroquine more effective or fight the coronavirus.

There are some big caveats: The study enrolled people through the Internet and social media, relying on them to report their own symptoms rather than having them tracked in a formal way by doctors.

Participants were not all tested for the coronavirus but were diagnosed as COVID-19 cases based on symptoms in many cases. And not all took their medicines as directed.

The results “are more provocative than definitive,” and the drug may yet have prevention benefits if tried sooner or in a different way, Dr. Myron Cohen of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill wrote in a commentary in the journal.

Others were glad to see a study that had a comparison group and good scientific methods after so many weaker reports on hydroxychloroquine.

“This fits with everything else we've seen so far which suggests that it's not beneficial," said Dr. Peter Bach, director of a health policy center at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

This study was in younger relatively healthy people, but the results “would make me very discouraged about trying to use this in older people” who are most vulnerable to serious illness from the coronavirus, Bach said.

“If it does work, it doesn't work very well.” Dr. Dan Culver, a lung specialist at the Cleveland Clinic, said there's still a chance that giving the drug sooner than four days after someone's exposure to the virus may help prevent illness.

But the study “takes 'home run' off the table” as far as hopes for the drug, he said.

The study was mostly funded by David Baszucki, founder of Roblox, a California-based game software company, and other private donors and the Minnesota university.

Boulware also is leading a study testing hydroxychloroquine for treating COVID-19. The study is finished and results are being analyzed now.

On Tuesday, the journal Lancet posted an “expression of concern” about a study it published earlier this month of nearly 15,000 COVID-19 patients on the malaria drugs that tied their use to a higher risk of dying in the hospital or developing a heartbeat problem.

Scientists have raised serious questions about the database used for that study, and its authors have launched an independent audit.

That work had a big impact: the World Health Organization suspended use of hydroxychloroquine in a study it is leading, and French officials stopped the drug's use in hospitals. On Wednesday, the WHO said experts who reviewed safety information decided that its study could resume.

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Agencies
January 16,2020

Moscow, Jan 16: Russia's government resigned in a shock announcement on Wednesday after President Vladimir Putin proposed a series of constitutional reforms.

In a televised meeting with the Russian president, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said the proposals would make significant changes to the country's balance of power and so "the government in its current form has resigned".

"We should provide the president of our country with the possibility to take all the necessary measures" to carry out the changes, Medvedev said.

"All further decisions will be taken by the president." Putin asked Medvedev, his longtime ally, to continue as head of government until a new government has been appointed.

"I want to thank you for everything that has been done, to express satisfaction with the results that have been achieved," Putin said.

"Not everything worked out, but everything never works out." He also proposed creating the post of deputy head of the Security Council, suggesting that Medvedev take on the position.

Earlier Wednesday Putin proposed a referendum on a package of reforms to Russia's constitution that would strengthen the role of parliament.

The changes would include giving parliament the power to choose the prime minister and senior cabinet members, instead of the president as in the current system.

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News Network
April 9,2020

Paris, Apr 9: More than 1.5 million cases of the novel coronavirus have been registered worldwide, according to a tally compiled by AFP at 0530 GMT Thursday from official sources.

Of the 1,502,478 infections, 87,320 people have died across 192 countries and territories since the epidemic first emerged in China late last year.

The tallies, using data collected by AFP from national authorities and information from the World Health Organization (WHO), probably reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections. Many countries are only testing the most serious cases.

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